More Ukrainian troops deserting – Polish minister
Ukrainian soldiers training in Poland are beginning to experience war fatigue and desertion is likely to grow, Polish Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of National Defense, Wladyslaw Kosiniak-Kamysz, told journalists on Monday.
Asked to comment on the recent Financial Times report about the growing number of desertions among Ukrainian servicemen, including those training abroad, the minister admitted that this was also happening in Poland, albeit at a “small, negligible” scale that “in no way threatens the training process.”
However, he noted that such instances are likely to occur more often the longer the conflict drags on, noting that war fatigue is setting in and that the Polish people are feeling it too.
The minister also expressed concern that few young Ukrainians living in Poland or other European countries have signed up for military training, despite that being one of the key agreements of the military cooperation deal between Warsaw and Kiev.
“I remember our conversation with President Zelensky in July this year. He was very optimistic that many people would sign up, that they had the whole operation prepared. Here, few people signed up. There were several dozen people who signed up for such training,” Kosiniak-Kamysz said.
At the same time, he also noted that Poland has been one of the primary counties providing training for Kiev’s troops, with about 26,000 Ukrainian servicemen having gone through Polish training camps since the start of the conflict.
Meanwhile, the Financial Times reported on Saturday that more than twice as many Ukrainians had been charged with desertion this year than in 2022 and 2023 combined. According to the outlet, Ukrainian prosecutors opened up some 60,000 cases against deserters between January and October of this year.
The article also claimed that a number of Ukrainians were deserting while at training camps in NATO countries, with one anonymous Polish official telling the outlet that some 12 Ukrainian troops run off from training centers in the country every month.
The Financial Times noted that many Ukrainian troops see desertion as the only way of getting off the front lines to rest as the country’s armed forces continue to experience a shortage of manpower and soldiers are denied rotations to recoup and retrain.
“They’re just killing them, instead of letting them rehabilitate and rest,” one officer told the newspaper.
